Strings to shadows
Unlike some puppet shows where the artists emphasise that puppetry is not merely for children and create performances specifically for adults, this time the festival presents performances aimed at the entire family. On how different is this year's festival, Pudumjee reveals, "We have an excellent group from Indonesia and also the Spanish Joan Baxias has a great visual performance piece.

He is also conducting a workshop called Smile-worldmap for young persons in his style of performance art." The festival opens with Ishara's own presentation which is a comic adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale, Anokhe Vastra. The play will use masks, puppets, colourful costumes and Brazilian beat music. "The hit play in Hindi, which was first produced in the 1980s, is now being revived with a new prologue after nearly 20 years. It has a colloquial twist to it," says Pudumjee.

Interactive shows
The other performances of the festival include debut of Mau Apa? or What do you Want? by the Indonesian group Papermoon Puppet Theatre which is an interactive play about sharing things in life, an animation done each day in the festival before people enter in the lobby. "The USP of the play is that the audience participates in the play and build a story together with the puppets.

And the message it tries to send to people, is about what they really want in their life, and share it with more people," states Maria Tri Sulistyani (Ria), artistic director of Papermoon Puppet Theatre.u00a0 Origami comes to life in Rain-Bird - A Paper Tale presented by The Train Theater from Israel. So get ready, don't miss on this joy ride with the puppets.